Research Challenges
As you research your Mexican genealogy, you may encounter a few challenges. These challenges can make Mexican research very time consuming. Some of these challenges may include:
Damaged Records
While records for the area you are researching in may have survived, there may have been some record damage over the years. Often times records were not well cared for by clergymen or civil authorities and so soiled and torn pages are commonly seen in the record books. Sometimes records are so badly damaged that writing is extremely difficult, or even impossible to read. This can make research very tedious.
No Indexes
Civil registers are more commonly indexed than parish registers, but overall, many Mexican records do not have indexes. If you’re researching in a larger parish, it can be very time consuming to search through the records page-by-page in order to find the entries you are seeking. The LDS Church has indexed many Mexican parish registers, and more are being indexed all the time in the "International Genealogical Index," which is available at www.familysearch.org. This is a great resource to use in your Mexican research.
Families on the Move
While many families lived within a particular parish or municipio for many generations, sometimes families moved around. This can make research challenging since you will have to trace the family in the records of the places they moved to. Therefore, if a family disappears from the records of a particular parish, generally the only way of finding them is to begin searching the records of surrounding parishes and municipios. This can be a very daunting task, yet the family is usually found not too far from their original place of origin.
Other Resources
You can find more help on the MexicoGenWeb site and at FamilySearch's Research Guidelines for Mexico.
